The present invention relates to packet communication using a mobile station such as a portable telephone and, more particularly, to a packet communication charge pre-notification system for notifying the user of a communication charge before transmitting packet data.
At present, various services using packet communication in mobile stations such as a portable telephone have been offered. The communication charge of a packet communication service is determined on the basis of not the communication time but the transmitted/received data amount. As a conventional method of obtaining the charging status of the packet communication charge, the user inquires the use status on a network. As another method, the user uses a packet dedicated device which always monitors the transmitted/received data amount and displays the results.
In the conventional methods, the user can know the past communication charge, but cannot know the communication charge of a service to be used. The user is sometimes confused by an unexpected high charge. To solve this, there is provided a mobile station which can use both a circuit switching service for speech communication or the like and a packet communication service, and displays an estimate of the previous/cumulative speech communication charge of the circuit switching service. However, there is no mobile station which allows the user to know the charging status (communication charge) as the sum of the charges of the two services. This is inconvenient for the user.